Top 5 Happiest Places to Live

211. This is episode number 211 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad you could join us for another episode here live from The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

I'm good. How are you?

Wunderbar, darling.

I don't even know what you just said.

I think it's from Green Acres.

I think it is too. Now that you say that, I'm like, that sounds exactly like Green Acres is the place to be.

Keep it going.

Farm living is the life for me.

Bring it home, Kev.

I'm not gonna keep going. It's, it's all done.

Ah, I have exciting news.

Okay, bring it.

2 Bourbon Craig. Oh, it's making a return, man. By the end of the show, he may even be 3 Bourbon Craig.

We are, y'all, we are in for a treat because this is my favorite Craig.

Mine too.

Mine too.

Yeah. So I, I have a— I actually have a correction To offer from last week. Oh, or last episode. That's not fair. Last episode.

Let okay.

When we were talking with Farrah, yes. And we I think we talked about Cinco de Mayo.

We did.

And then I started talking about how France was involved with the American Civil War.

Right.

Which is true, but only kind of. Okay. So expound. They had an official position of neutrality.

Okay.

But there was a lot of shenanigans going on between private citizens and unrecognized ambassadors from the Confederacy. So apparently, at one point in time, the ambassador from the Confederacy, and I think it was like John Slidell, I think was his name, secured a loan for like $15 million.

What?

From an individual in France in order to purchase ships for the Confederate Navy.

What?

So, and here's the thing. Here's the part that I think this is where the homunculus in my brain was actually connecting the dots, because here's what's happened in— let's see, where was it?

Oh, West Philadelphia, born and raised.

No.

On a playground.

Not even close.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. So in 1864, because France had an official position of neutrality in the American Civil War, they invaded Mexico. Oh, and set up a puppet dictator named Maximilian. Oh, that, that's where Maximilian comes in, which they ousted, of course, on Cinco de Mayo. 2 years later.

And, and this is where we come into the full circle. The full circle. Yeah.

So, yeah.

Who— so here's the question. Did you go research that or did someone point you out?

No. I went and researched that. Okay. Because, like, as I— like, I remember talking about it during the show and I was like, you're saying stuff, but you don't know what you're talking about.

Right?

Like, you really don't know what you're talking about.

Wow.

And— but, like, there was—

there was 90% of our show.

Well, but, like, it was— that's true.

But I was—

I mean, in my head I'm going like, okay, like, I know that there's something to this, and like, I know there's a reason my brain is connecting these dots. I just couldn't remember why.

Yeah.

Um, and there it is.

That's it.

That's the thing.

Wow.

So yeah, we were, we were all kind of talking about the same thing.

Yeah. One, one thing you're not going to get me to talk about is history and geography.

And geography.

I, I really enjoy history, Now, I really hated it growing up.

Really?

Yes, because it was always like the, um, the crappy football coach that got stuck teaching history, and it was like, fill this paper out and I'm gonna work on plays, is how that worked.

See, I had a totally different experience. I mean, like, I think some of my most passionate teachers when I was in school were history teachers.

So that all changed for me when I was in my freshman year of college. And I had a teacher who was super passionate about it, and it was actually my favorite class. Um, I loved it. And over the years, I've enjoyed it more. Sure, man. I, I did not learn very much up until then as far as I go in geography. Like, good luck, man.

I think, I think that's fair. I think like when you're in grade school, middle school, high school, I mean, it's pretty much survey kind of stuff. Yeah, you know. Oh yeah. But like when you get to, when you get to college, I think, is when you really get to kind of dig in a little bit deeper into some of the more interesting aspects of what history is actually comprised of.

Yeah.

And this was one of the ones for me. I mean, like, the American Civil War, I mean, was just, you know, so many people want to reduce it down to such simple things, and it's just not a simple thing.

No.

You know, and so like, like even when you, when you start looking at like the way that other countries, uh, treat— as I was reading about this, it was like France wanted to intervene to end the Civil War, um, but they couldn't get a coalition of superpowers to agree with them. Like Britain and Russia wanted the war to continue.

Hmm.

They didn't like that the US was, you know, when they were together, that they were actually powerful and influential.

They wanted the—

they, they liked the fact that they were fighting. Um, so it was interesting stuff, man. So anyway, just wanted to offer that, that slight correction to my— because there were a lot of people, I promise you, my BS historical rantings from, from last episode.

There were so many people that were like, that Craig is wrong, he's so wrong right now.

Well, that's every episode.

Yeah, we, we could have gotten emails We could have. We didn't.

We didn't.

No, not about that.

Not even from my cousin, who's actually like a professional historian.

Oh, so and he would have been well within his right, but he would have been had to be listening. I may have.

He's he's a very sweet person, so he may have just been like, "It's not worth it." Eh, we all know he's a moron. He's probably you know like he's probably right. It just wasn't worth his time. He's got he's got fifth graders that have way more potential.

That's funny.

Than me.

Hey, so, uh, at some point we're going to have to, uh, do a review on something that I just got a notification about.

Okay.

Which is that my dryer has completed its cycle.

Oh, it just told you?

Yep, my clothes are dry.

Yeah, that's awful polite of it.

It's, it's pretty amazing actually.

Pretty swanky dryer you got there, you know.

Go big or go home.

Talking to you across the interwebs all the way over here.

Exactly. So what it really is—

Did you use a good font?

No, it's normal. What, what, uh, what is really great is then I can just text my wife and say, dryer's done. You got the same notification, but you didn't pay attention. That's how that goes.

So just like a normal dryer.

Yes, exactly. There's really no difference except that now I've got annoying notifications on my watch. No, it's actually really, really good. So we'll have to do a, a review on it.

What's the brand?

It's Maytag.

Maytag. Okay.

Yeah, I— we went through a lot of iterations of what we were going to do before we landed on this, and there are nuances to all that. So it's a— it'll be a good episode, I'll put it that way, because there's, there's a lot of things to consider.

Here's the one thing I know about Maytag right now.

What's that?

The new guy that's, uh, the blue repairman, uh-huh, is the cop from Eureka.

Oh.

You ever watch that show?

I never did, but I, I kind of have an idea of— I, now that you say that, I, I, I see the guy. Uh-huh. Okay, I, I can, I can— okay.

I kind of feel like it's a demotion, but good for him, he's working.

He's making money as the repair guy. He's not a repair guy. Maytag guy's one installing the Maytag.

Well, but that's, that's the whole— that's the whole thing. It's like you don't need a repairman. You don't need a repairman.

Exactly. Yeah.

But he's the Maytag repairman.

Yeah.

So, so he's a funny actor. I don't know why. I mean, like, I guess it's a good gig. I mean, maybe hopefully he's making good money. Sure. He made— he had a good role on Eureka. If you— dude, if you haven't ever watched that, that's a good show.

I've never watched it.

Dude, make it a, uh— here, do this, do this.

There you go. That fly— is it a fly?

It's the fly.

That fly—

We got one fly in the studio.

It is annoying me to no end.

It is marked for death.

Yeah. Well, yes, he is. And if only I had a flyswatter a little bit larger than my hat, then he'd been gone already. Be gone for sure.

So we are picking up from a few episodes ago, a series that we're doing on the top 5 cities. And so all this information is coming from WalletHub. They did a lot of deep dive into some data. And so bringing you— and obviously their list is I think this one goes to all— let's— I'm going to scroll all the way down to the bottom. Number 182. So 182 cities. Obviously, that's not all the cities in the US, but we're going to go through the top 5 cities in the United States that are the happiest cities, at least according to the data that they collected. WalletHub.

And now we probably have to be pretty explicit here and say That— not weird explicit, just like specific.

Yeah, don't be dirty.

Yeah, uh, probably need to be specific.

It's a different kind of happy.

Um, that, uh, this is based on happiness, not on necessarily— like, I assume—

Which is a very subjective thing.

Yeah, and, and so I assume we're talking about the people that live there feel happy, and more than what the city itself does to you.

Well, so they based it off of 3 categories. Okay, so the 3 categories being, uh, emotional and physical well-being. Okay, uh, income and employment, and community and environment.

Okay, so, so it really is like—

I don't really know how you Of, of living there. Income and employment. I understand how you measure those things.

Yes.

Emotional and physical well-being. I don't know how you measure that.

Yeah.

I mean, do you have less appointments with therapists and counselors?

And we can't employ counselors because they keep going out of business.

I mean, in the cities where there's emotional and physical well-being, are the counselors poorer? I mean, do you—

which, which acts at, you know, it indirectly affects the, the whole employment and—

Right.

The amount of money you're making.

That's got to factor in there.

So it adversely affects one of the categories.

Well, and, and then the third category, which I think is a weird category, is community and environment. Like, to me, those are very different things, right? Because I would imagine, just shooting from the hip here, that community in parts of Montana are pretty low, but that the environmental situation is pretty high. Um, I don't know how you, how you put those, why you would put those 2 things together into it. Like, I understand those 2 things as independent categories, right? I don't understand them as a single category.

Okay. Yeah.

If that makes sense.

Yeah. Although, unless you can find that perfect scenario that has both of those things together, maybe, I don't know. And then you ask the question, why are there 182 options then on this list?

So, and I would, I would also like to point out that number 182, uh, sorry. Well, let's, let's also mention that poor 182. There's, there's a lot of cities not on the list. Uh-huh. So they fell below this. But number 182 is Detroit, Michigan. So doesn't matter how good your music is, Motown. No, you ain't, you ain't happy.

Well, that's kind of the point.

You're 1 in 182.

Is it?

You would think that the music would make them feel better.

The music would make them feel better, maybe, but the music that's being produced is not necessarily always happy.

Sure. But I mean, it's good music.

It is. Well, I don't disagree with you.

So good music should make everyone happy.

You would think.

It should.

If that were the case, let's just blare music everywhere.

That's radio.

Well, people don't listen to that anymore.

Well, but I mean, like, you know, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music. I mean, people are— people are— I actually think people are listening to more and more diverse music than they have in the past. For sure.

Yeah. But the access to it's a whole lot different.

But I don't know that that's affecting the happiness of any of these cities.

Well, we'll find out.

Yeah. So do you wanna just go through the list real quick?

Yeah. So we're gonna start with number 5, right?

I mean, just right off the bat, we think this list is bunk. Yeah.

Well, there's something very biased about this list, first of all. So the number 5 is Irvine, California.

Yep.

And do you, do you want me to just go through it.

Well, so Irvine, California, I mean, it had a total score of 70.38. It came in number 5 in emotional and physical well-being. It came in number 16 under income and employment, and it came in number 12 on community and environment.

Right.

So for those reasons, it's number 5.

Number 5.

Yeah. What, like, Irvine, is that where, is that where Apple is? Headquartered?

I don't know. Nope. No, it's Cupertino.

Cupertino. What's in Irvine? Something's in Irvine. There's like—

I mean, a lot of happy people. That's what's in—

apparently.

What's in Irvine? This tells you how much we know people. Again, we're talking geography a little bit.

Our best subject.

What is Irvine known for? Beautiful parks, friendly people, low crime, and great schools. Actually, that is happy.

Yeah, that's, that's not bad.

That's what they're known for.

That's what it's known for. If that's what you're known for, then hey, I imagine you have a pretty happy community.

Yeah. I mean, the next question that I find is what's special about Irvine? And it says it's family-oriented town full of sprawling bike paths and rows of pretty houses. I actually want to live there now.

Dude, if you, if you want to chase me out of somewhere, tell me that there are rows of houses.

Rows of houses, but they're pretty.

I don't care. Don't care.

Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm fine with that.

I want a house.

Yes.

Where there could be rows of houses, but there are no houses.

There are— there, there's actually a lack of rows.

There's a lack of houses, but there is a house.

Yeah, that would be fantastic.

Just me and the horse. That's, that's what I want.

Okay, well then we're back to Montana again.

I'm in.

Yeah, I, I'm sure it's beautiful. I've never been there. I'd like to go to Montana. Have you been to Montana?

I've never been to— again, like we mentioned last episode, I've never been north of the Mason-Dixon line except to go to Chicago.

That is, that is really amazing.

And about the only— the re— one of the only ways that you could talk me into doing it Montana, Wyoming, one of the Dakotas.

Food.

Maybe food.

Yeah. I feel like, I feel like you could talk me into going to Alaska.

I could.

I would go.

I would go to Alaska, dude.

So my, my mother-in-law actually just got back from Alaska. Uh, she spent, uh, they did 14 days.

I saw that.

Yeah. Cruise, week-long cruise and a week-long, uh, land.

Also Idaho.

Oh, yeah.

Like, it's— I think, I think Idaho is going to quickly become like sort of like the, the secret of the American West.

Because nobody wants to live there?

No, like it actually has like really, like really, really pretty places.

Oh yeah. Oh no, and there's some gorgeous places.

But most people think of like Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. Yeah, um, things like that. Most people don't think about Idaho.

No, because they got potatoes. Yeah, I mean, also good food.

Well, I think, I think most people hear Idaho and they think potatoes, and so they immediately think like Kansas. Ah, and it's not. He is in your face.

This stupid fly. This is gonna—

that was so great. I really hope the camera was on you.

It was not. If, uh, if you like suddenly hear a weird crash on— just know that I have killed something.

He's actually on the camera right now and I really want to smack him, but I know if I do, I'm gonna mess up the shot. I know.

Is it worth it?

No.

No, I don't think so either.

Oh, I'll get him. I'll get him here in a minute.

All right.

So anyway, number 4.

Number 4 is San Jose, California.

San Jose.

Wasn't San Jose on one of our other lists?

I think it was.

I think it was too.

But here's where it ranked. San Jose's number 2 in emotional and physical well-being, number 6 in income and employment, and number 55 in community and environment. So not, not a really great community, but I mean, like, not a terrible community. Yeah. Um, but number 2 in emotional and physical well-being.

Well, I mean, again, we're talking about cities on a coast area— coastal, coastal area, coastal area.

And so, like, I would imagine San Jose is a pretty area, pretty a pretty place outside. Yeah.

And, and the, the atmosphere is nice. The climate is nice. The, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think that it's, uh, California has a lot to offer whenever it comes to like enjoyability of where you're living.

Sure.

Um, you know, it's, it's got a lot of, you know, a lot of big trees.

Does it?

Well, there's the redwoods there and the sequoias, so there's really big trees. Um, but yeah, it's, it's so, uh, you know, I'll say that, uh, San Jose apparently is notable for its affluent lifestyle, flourishing job market, cultural diversity, and beautiful natural landscape.

Yeah, so San Jose was on another list, but I think it was because it was so close to Fremont.

Oh, yeah, that's what it was. Yeah.

And so here's what I'll say is I've spent— I mean, just south of there, I've spent a fair amount of time in Los Angeles.

Yeah.

And one of the things, and if you look at sort of like the landscape, I mean, it's part of mountain ranges that go up and down the coast.

There's a lot of hiking there.

Yes. But one of the things that it creates there that's really interesting is every time I've been to Los Angeles, it's been in the summer. And it's like, at— when it's the hottest, it's like 85, 86 degrees. And I'm sure it gets a little hotter there sometimes. But every day I was there, man, it was like 85 degrees in the middle of the day.

And then at night, oh, yeah.

It was like 55.

Right. It's beautiful.

And I was like, alright, I get it.

Yep.

Like, this is nice. This is really, really nice.

Really nice.

You don't really have to have air conditioning.

No.

Because, I mean, it gets to 85 at the heat of the day, but and it's just going to cool down to 55 at night.

Right.

So you don't really need that.

Right.

You can, like, if you're insulated well, you can cool your house down at night and it's going to sort of maintain that 72-ish throughout the day with an oscillating fan.

Yeah. So it's pretty amazing.

But yeah, so I mean, like, and so San Jose is, it looks like it's probably like 3 or 4 hours north of Los Angeles. So I imagine it's got very similar climate. Yeah. And, uh, you know, in, in weather.

Yeah.

I mean, and one of the other things that you'll— if you talk to Californians, um, when they, when they come to Texas, one of the things that freaks them out about living here is thunderstorms.

Ah, yeah.

Like, they've never had to experience those there.

Right.

Which is weird.

Yet they do have to worry about earthquakes.

Earthquakes is a thing for sure.

But yeah, you know, It just— that's something that most of them just deal with, you know?

Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like hurricanes here.

Yeah, you just deal with it.

You just kind of figure it out.

Yep, exactly.

All right, moving on.

The next one, and, and I will— I can see this being the case.

And I, I actually don't think this is fair, but carry on.

Okay, so the next one is San Francisco, California, which is the same place as San Jose.

Yes.

Yeah, they're, they're like next door to each other.

Yes, it is the same place.

Yeah, it is.

Now I imagine people from San Jose are like, to hell with you.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. They probably don't want anything to do with San Francisco, most likely.

Suck it up, buttercup.

You live next door. There's nothing you can do about it. Yeah. But have you been to San Francisco?

No.

Okay. Never been. We've been once and we had a great time. I mean, the theater area, Is is nice. The I don't know, like there are museums all over the place. The everything about our trip was great. The you know the the wharf area was amazing. I mean they do have a lot of good food. Ghirardelli's there, so there's that. I don't know. We, we enjoy— in fact, we were talking just the other day about like places to go on vacation, and we said we'd go back to San Francisco. It was nice. Yeah.

So dude, have you, have you seen this comment in the—

Oh yeah, I saw it and then I deleted it.

You deleted it?

Yeah.

What the heck is that?

I don't know, some spam. It's spam. We got spam comment.

What the—

I don't, I don't know.

Love spell?

I— yeah, I don't know. I deleted it.

Oh, why? Why? I like to think that we have magical powers, Devin.

Well, we don't.

We could.

But this person needs their, their relationship mended with their fiancée.

It says that we saved their marriage.

I doubt it. There's no way. There's no way that's true unless they live in one of the next 2 cities. One of the 2 happiest places on the planet.

That's the only thing that could have done it.

I don't know.

That's pretty funny.

I know. It was a— yes. Yes. Thank you, Jewel.

Yeah.

For giving us that.

May you have many more happy years.

You're welcome.

That's right.

All right. So the next one. This can't be right because it's not in California.

That's right. I don't know if you notice the trend, people, but the last three cities were all in California.

That's right. And this one is Columbia, Maryland.

Uh huh.

I I don't know anything about it.

Well, let's.

I mean, I've never been to Maryland.

Let's see what you can learn by Googling.

I would like to go to Maryland. Um, I don't think I've been there. I maybe I have because I've been through like that area and like it seems like every state is next. like the next city for us. It's just like we're in a new state. We're in a new state. We're in a new state is how I feel about it.

Okay, so Columbia sits— it looks like it's like an hour southwest of Baltimore.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. And then so is this okay? And then so, okay, like it sits almost exactly in the middle between Baltimore and DC.

Oh, well then I guarantee that I've been through there.

And then I've— it's like northwest of Annapolis.

Oh, I want to go there.

So it's, it's not very far from like the Baltimore International Airport. Um, looks like it's really close to like a lot of parks. Yeah.

Um, So what, what I find on the internet is that, um, they've got a thriving tech industry, plenty of fun things to do, warm summers, access to Baltimore and DC, good public transportation.

Um, you got 3 quarters of a clover in the middle of downtown.

Okay.

Like one of those driving—

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. You, you zoomed in.

They didn't, they didn't finish the Okay. Anyway.

Well, they only had 3 areas.

Oh wait, they got another one. It's down here near the border. Sorry.

Another clover?

They got a full clover and a 3/4 clover. 2 3/4 clovers.

Well, their public transportation can figure it out because they've got great public transportation apparently.

And 1 Chick-fil-A just outside of city limits.

Outside of the city limits? So they So they're number 2 on the list and don't even have a Chick-fil-A in their town.

No Chick-fil-A's in Colombia.

That is shocking, y'all. Yeah.

I would imagine the manners in that city are lacking.

They probably are because there's no one teaching them to say my pleasure.

That's right.

There's no one in that whole city teaching them about manners. You're right.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. I stand corrected. There is a Starbucks. Oh, I mean a Starbucks, a Chick-fil-A.

Say what?

Sorry. There was a Starbucks on my map. There is a Chick-fil-A at the mall.

Oh, well, of course, because it's the mall.

And a Texas Roadhouse.

At the mall?

Near the mall.

Oh.

But a Texas Roadhouse nonetheless in Maryland.

It is interesting how many places have Texas Roadhouse.

Texas Roadhouse.

Yeah. And people think that that's like—

That's the embodiment of Texas.

And it's not. I mean, they do have great rolls.

Yes.

The rolls are amazing.

I, I'm actually curious if if it's okay to throw the peanuts on the floor at every Texas Roadhouse everywhere.

I— what's interesting is like you see that less and less now in general.

Really?

Yes, they do not just have peanuts at the front door and everything where you just—

Is that because of allergies?

I assume so. I assume so. I mean, you can still get peanuts, but you have to like dispose of them discreetly, I guess.

Look, look, if you have a peanut allergy, Yeah, don't go to a Texas Roadhouse.

Well, I don't know why you would.

It's not— look, I'm not dumping on Texas Roadhouse or people with peanut allergies either way. Yeah, but there are better places to get steaks.

Uh, 100% better.

Yeah, I mean, like, I don't want— I don't want any—

We have plenty of time.

Do you? How much? Dude, that's a whole other episode. I need an hour.

I know.

But, and again, the steaks at Texas Roadhouse aren't bad.

No, they're fine.

They're good steaks.

Yeah. But like, I eat them.

If you're gonna tell me like you are preventing me and my allergy, my peanut allergy friend from having dinner, no.

Yeah.

I'm not.

No, because honestly, next door is probably Saltgrass. And it's fine.

It's fine.

Yeah.

It's on the same level.

They're comparable. So If you want a fine steak, a decent steak, then go to Saltgrass, Texas Roadhouse, Outback.

Yep.

And we've named that category. There are other categories as well.

That's right. Um, there are subcategories.

You know what, like, since we're on the subject, for just a moment, we're not going to take too much of a tangent here. Okay. But you know who has a surprisingly okay steak?

Who?

Chili's.

Shut your mouth.

No, I, I'm telling you.

No, you're not. You're not allowed to talk anymore.

It is. It is.

You're done for the rest of the episode.

I would equally eat that to a Texas Roadhouse steak. I'm, I'm not joking.

I wouldn't do that.

I'm not joking you. Have you not tried it?

I don't need to.

You—

I've tried other things at Chili's.

It is, uh, it is one of the more shocking things. About Chili's. No, you're just not worth it.

I guess you're just gonna have to take my word for it because I'm not gonna.

You should. It's surprising, I promise you.

It's like telling me that Gremlins deserved an Oscar.

Well, that's not true. See, something I didn't say—

what I said, some things I don't need to go through the process in order to know that they're not accurate.

See, I said it's surprisingly decent. That was the words I used.

I am surprised by your statement.

Okay, well, I guess you'll forever live without not knowing— without not knowing— without knowing—

without knowing that.

I mean, you know now because I told you.

I'm okay with this.

Experiencing—

I don't need to know that. There's nothing— there's nothing about that that I need to know. Okay.

Well, do you do— no, no, you now know.

I mean, like, I, I've had a firm commitment to not darken the door of a Chili's for at least the last decade.

Wow, that's impressive.

It's just not worth my time.

I mean, they're—

I only have so many meals left, Kevin.

They're chili cakes.

The chili cakes. That ain't one of them.

That ain't one of them? No. Okay. All right. Oh, moving on.

Or Colombia.

I don't— yeah, I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure people from Colombia are very happy.

Maybe they're happier because I'm not there.

I don't know. Well, that's for sure. Um, okay, so the last one.

Sure.

Guess what, people?

Let's go back to California.

Go back to California, and we are in Fremont.

All I got to say is screw you, WalletHub.

WalletHub does— why did we start this?

Because it's something worth talking about. I mean, people go to WalletHub for information. Sure. They collect a lot of data, but I'm beginning to think they're a little biased.

Yeah. There's no other explanation that I can give other than the fact that California is— 4 of the top 5. is the most happiest place on the earth. Or, well, sorry, there are other places on the earth other than the United States. Sure. Did not mean to say that. Yeah. Did not mean to say that, nor do I actually think that.

You said the quiet part out loud. Sorry.

We just edit that out, right? That's what we do here is we edit things. No, we don't. It'll be in there. So Fremont, I, I, so I literally Googled what's great about Fremont, California.

Sure.

And the first thing that comes on up is Fremont is a very family-friendly city.

It's, it's a suburb of San Francisco, right?

Guess what?

Just like every—

San Jose.

Yes.

3 of the 5 places that are on this place are centrally located in San Francisco.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. Whoever wrote this is probably from Fremont and really likes San Francisco.

So here, here's, here's an interesting thing that they say in their little article that, like, you know, is, is priming you for the list on WalletHub that they're about to do. Okay. Um, it's, uh, let's see, where do I start? Let me, let me start at the beginning. Location plays a hand in how bright or gloomy our days are. For years, researchers have studied the science of happiness and found that its key ingredients include a positive mental state, healthy body, strong social connections, job satisfaction, and financial well-being. However, money can only make you so happy.

Ah.

People who make $75,000 a year won't get any higher satisfaction from more money. Consider also the fact that while the US is one of the richest countries, it ranks only 14th in the World Happiness Report. So there are aspects of that that I actually agree with.

Sure.

But I'm sorry. If you tell me that I won't be happier making $150,000 versus $75,000, I'm gonna be exponentially happier statistically.

Sure.

Statistically, not not overall, but like in general, I'm probably going to be able to experience some more level of satisfactory happiness.

Right. I mean, there's a really good country song about this.

Okay.

That you say money won't buy me happiness, but it'll buy me a boat. Right. And it'll buy me a truck to pull it and it'll buy me a Yeti that I can ice down with cold beer.

Right.

That's how that song goes. It's like, Okay. I think money can buy me some happiness.

You know, for, for some people it can. Yeah. I think there's, I think there's a certain, I, I, I think, I think a lot of it has to do with the temperament of the person. Sure. But, like, I mean, just that, that is such a, I, I don't know that there's any data to back that up.

It, it is interesting whenever you start saying things like money won't buy you happiness. But then you don't put any type of religion into the conversation.

Right.

Because, because, okay. Well, then what does?

Right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. You don't wanna— you wouldn't wanna follow that up with anything. Well, money won't buy you. Okay. What, what does?

Right.

What is it that— okay. So, like, people that make less than 75 and are still happy, what do we know about them to be true? Or people that make more than that.

Which is a lot more money.

Sure. Or people that make more than that and you're yet still happy.

Right.

I mean, and so, like, what are the, what are the commonalities between those people? You know, and, but, like, so, like, this is, you know, again, generalities don't really tend to make people satisfied with the answer.

Right.

The other thing that I think is interesting is one, that so, like, 4 of the top 5 cities are from California.

Yeah.

Yet, right, between April of 2020 and January of 2022, more than 352,000 people have evacuated the state of California.

Oh my goodness.

You know, and that's January of 2022.

Right.

We're now in September of 2022. And, you know, we're going to be getting updated numbers as to how many more people have left. And I don't know about you, but I continue to see Oh, yeah. New residents here from California.

Yep.

And so I can, like, I can imagine that people don't, you know, people don't leave a place because they're so happy.

No.

Now, to be fair, San Francisco is a big area.

Yeah, it is.

Los Angeles is a big area. San Diego is a big area.

Yep.

There's, there's several big cities in Los Angeles and, you know, 300,000.

In California.

I'm sorry, California. 352,000 is not a massive amount of people.

No.

To California in general. I mean, to the state of Rhode Island.

Well, that's probably more than they have.

It's a lot of people.

A lot of people. I don't know. Providence is bigger than that.

But to have that many people leave, that's a lot of people. And when I searched how many people have left California in 2022, numerous articles. Like, this, this is a phenomenon that people are recognizing. And so, like, I'm, I'm sorry, like, you, you can, you can throw the data at me all you want, right? These are not happy places.

It does not mean that I agree with the data. And like, when you look at the top 20 here, 11 of them are in California.

Yeah, give me a break, right? I mean, if they're so happy, why aren't they staying, right?

It's a great question. And why are they coming to Texas?

Well, not just Texas.

Um, a lot of them are going to Florida.

It's Texas, Virginia, Washington, Florida.

Yeah.

So, which Washington's a weird one, but it's, it's close.

Yeah.

And it's because they don't want to be in Oregon.

Sure.

Because Portland's there and that place is nuts.

Yeah. Just ask our friend Eric G. Just ask him.

So, which he needs, he needs to just come on down to Texas.

Yeah, absolutely. It would actually make—

Eric G, come to Texas. We got a studio ready for you.

We do. And it would make your life so much easier because you wouldn't have to worry about all these weird regulations. Yeah, in fact, we don't have any here.

The taxes are better.

Yeah, yeah.

Your beard would be more accepted.

That's true.

And, and respected.

And yes, that's true. And you can have non-natural gas appliances in your house.

For that alone.

Yeah, for that alone.

It's just Civil War round 2. Yeah, let's just go.

Yeah. No, or no, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they have to get rid of natural gas. That's what I mean to say. They got to get rid of natural gas. You're all electric. Yeah, that's what I meant to say.

so that they can turn it off whenever they want.

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Uh, crazy stuff. Which, that's the thing.

I mean, like, have you, have you heard all the stuff that's been going on in California lately?

Well, about— yeah, about the fact that they were like, first of all, let's, let's recap and go to the place where they said that basically they're going to outlaw the sale of anything other than electric vehicles.

Yep.

By the year, what is it, 2030?

Mm-hmm.

Something like that.

Something.

And then, and then because of all of the power outages and things that are happening in California over the last few weeks, they've told people stop charging your electric cars because you're pulling on the power grid.

Yep. That's the thing.

The irony behind this is not lost on probably anybody. Yeah.

And it's like, really, like, You guys didn't, like, have a meeting about this?

And this is, this is what you came up with?

I think, I think the messaging on this may not be all that great. Yeah. Ah, let's do it anyway.

Do it anyway. Yeah. What, what are they gonna do? No one will notice. Yeah. What are they gonna do? Leave? Yeah, they will. Yeah. In droves, actually. Yeah. They'll leave. Yeah, absolutely. Oh my goodness. Crazy stuff.

Anything else about this one, man?

Man, I think this about wraps it up. All right, all right. Well, thank you guys for downloading today's episode and listening on the interwebs. We appreciate you very, very much. If you haven't already, go ahead and click that like button and subscribe button. Go over to iTunes— it's Apple Podcasts, I say it every time— Apple Podcasts, and leave us a rating and review. That'd be very, very helpful. And as always, we're here each and every Tuesday, and until next time, we'll see you later.

See ya.